Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 10

BREAKING BARRIERS Justice Petra Maes helped change the face of law to do something more than just the run-of-the-mill job," she says. Maes insisted on taking college prep courses in high school, then worked her way through the University of New Mexico. Many firsts When she got to the UNM law school in 1970 the first Hispanic woman to enroll there were a dozen women and a dozen Hispanics in her class of about 100, she recalls. There were no female or Hispanic professors. Maes set about changing that, lobbying administrators and helping form the Mexican American Law Student Association.

"When Petra Jimenez came to law school, this wasn't a thing that women did," says fellow Supreme Court Justice Charles Daniels. Daniels remembers meeting Maes when he was a young professor and she was taking his evidence class. "I thought, 'This is a very strong woman and a strong law student'," he recalls. "I had no idea she'd be such a trailblazer in her career." Today, the face of the law school is much different. The class that will graduate in 2014 is 44 Continued on next page EDDIE MOOREJOURNAL issues, such as abuse and neglect, a priority as a New Mexico BY DEBORAH BAKER JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Too short to be a lawyer? That's what Petra Jimenez Maes's siblings told her, teasing their older sister about the ambition she had even as a young girl.

But there was a broader stereo-type, and she knew she didn't fit it. Lawyers "were men and they were Anglo and they were tall," she says. "And I was short and brown and female." Maes brushed aside suggestions from some that the courtroom was no place for a woman, that she should do something more fitting an executive secretary, perhaps. She went on to become the first college graduate in her family, a lawyer, a state district judge, and a justice and chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court the first Hispanic female in the nation to serve in that role. And while she did that, she raised four children as a single mother, following the death of her husband, bar owner Ismael "Sonny" BY THE NUMBERS Nationally According to the American Bar Association, 33 percent of lawyers in the United States are women; they represent less than 20 percent of partners or equity partners in private law firms, earning 86 percent of the compensation of their male counterparts; women Petra Maes has made children's Supreme Court justice.

Maes, in a car crash in 1983. Maes says she is always asked about her career as a judge "but I like to think of myself as a successful mom, and that I have some real amazing kids." Maes, 64, grew up in Albuquerque, the oldest of five children and the second generation in her family to be born in the United States. Her grandparents came from Mexico. "When my grandmother came across the border, represent between 27 percent and 33 percent of sitting judges, depending on the level of the court and if it's state or federal. An ABA survey of Fortune 500 corporations in America that do employ women as general counsel shows that 85 percent of those women are Caucasian, 9 percent are African-American and 3 percent are Hispanic.

she had to pay $50 to enter the United States and had to take a shower," she says. Early influences Her parents met while working in a hotel but later opened a television repair shop they ran for more than 30 years. Maes spoke Spanish until she started elementary school, where she got so upset at being teased about her poor English that her father decided that from then on, only English would be spoken in their In New Mexico According to the UNM School of Law, 47.4 percent of students are women, while 56 percent of full-time faculty are women. State Bar of New Mexico numbers show that 39.4 percent of its lawyers are female; 45 percent of the 22-member elected Board of Bar Commissioners are home. She knew about lawyers because her parents consulted one for their business.

But, more impressively, there was "Perry Mason," the popular TV legal drama. "He was in the courtroom and he was asking these people questions, tough questions, and he was solving crimes," Maes recalls. It appealed to her "general feeling of wanting to help people." "I always knew I wanted women. Based on 2012 information from Research Polling the State Bar reports that the average income for solo practicing female lawyers was $84,339, compared to the average income of male solo practitioners of women partner shareholders in large law firms had an average income of $150,732, compared to their male counterparts who earned average income of women lawyers working for the government was $65,570, compared to men's average of $69,712. About 31 percent of judgeships in New Mexico are filled by women, according to the Administrative Office of the New Mexico Supreme Court.

10 Sage I November 2012.